Name: Almond Cakes
Ingredients: 4 ounces sweet almonds; 2 ounces bitter almonds; 12 ounces grated sugar; 3 egg whites, well beaten; 1 ounce sifted ground rice; Butter for greasing tins

Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Almond Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Blanch and finely pound the sweet and bitter almonds with a little grated sugar.
In a bowl, combine the pounded almonds, remaining grated sugar, beaten egg whites, and sifted ground rice, and mix until well combined.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease small tins with butter.

Bake

Pour the mixture into the prepared tins.
Bake until golden and set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,456 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,645 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds: Provide the main almond flavour and the bulk of the cake's body.
Bitter almonds: Add a deeper, more intense almond aroma to the cakes.
Grated sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Egg whites: Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as it bakes.
Ground rice: Adds light body and a slightly firm, tender crumb to the batter.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.